


A Volume of Work

by tawg



Series: Religious Studies AU [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, College AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The university would like to advise that it does not condone excessive drinking. However, it has no formal policy on traditional Bavarian attire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Volume of Work

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains excessive and irresponsible consumption of alcohol, educators objectifying university students who are over the age of consent, and lederhosen.

Balthazar stared at the view outside the tiny office window. There was a tree right outside. There was nothing to the view _but_ the tree. It was an oak, and its leaves were various shades of orange and red. It was October. There was a stack of the first essays of the year on his desk. 

Across the tiny space, Crowley was working his way through his own stack of essays. As lecturers they differed greatly in their techniques. Crowley liked to set impossibly hard and boring assignments early in the year to encourage students to drop his course. Balthazar liked to make the semester fairly light and fun so the marking would be easy throughout the course and then he could have the maniacal joy of failing large numbers of students when marking the final exam. 

“Oh look,” Crowley said in false surprise. “I’ve gone and finished _another one_. I hope you’ve been saving your pennies.”

“I’ll catch up,” Balthazar replied absently.

“But you won’t overtake me,” Crowley volleyed back. “And then you will buy me drinks and I will make you spend your rent money showing me a good time.” He was grinning as he said it. Balthazar would curse Crowley for turning essay marking into a competitive sport, but the honest truth was that Balthazar always set the incentives. He had only himself to blame.

“We could just go Dutch for dinner and make the boy do all the marking?” he suggested.

“Mm,” Crowley replied. “You’d have to find the blue-eyed wonder first. Oh, look, I’m starting on _another_ paper. My, my, I’m just insatiable, aren’t I?”

“I hate you,” Balthazar replied, unfolding his long frame from his squeaking office chair. He poked his head into the closet that had been given the grand title of “postgraduate research room” once a light had been fitted into it, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. “He’s not in,” he called over his shoulder.

Crowley snorted. “He’s always in. Look under the desk. Maybe he fell and couldn’t get up?”

Balthazar crouched down and peered into the dark space. He thought he could see some bundled up material, and leaned forwards, poking his head right under the desk to investigate.

“What are you doing?” a voice asked from behind him.

Balthazar jumped and smacked his head on the underside of the desk, then backed out of the closet with a curse. “Looking for you, you sneaky little sneak.”

“Such harsh language,” Crowley commented with an eye roll.

“Where’ve you been?” Balthazar demanded, standing up and putting his hands on his hips.

“I have today off,” Castiel replied.

“No you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You never have days off. You’re here on weekends.”

“I requested it at the end of last year.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“... Really?”

“Yes,” Castiel replied. “The form is in my file.”

Crowley and Balthazar exchanged a look. “He does the filing,” Crowley observed. “So he would know.”

“Why did you ask for today off?” Balthazar asked, flopping down into his chair which creaked in protest.

“I am participating in a student club event.” Castiel raised his chin a little as he spoke, a tiny sign of pride.

“What club?” Balthazar asked, hoping to get Castiel talking enough to discover that this was all an elaborate tangle of lies. Then he could ground their little post-doc and force him to mark essays on the economics of religion as punishment.

“The German club,” Castiel replied. He went onto his hands and knees in the doorway of his closet, and pulled a calico bag out from under his desk.

Balthazar snorted. “And what kind of event is the German club hosting in the first week of October?” Then he paused. He looked across the small office at Crowley. Given the look on his colleague’s face they were speeding through identical thought processes.

“Oktoberfest,” Castiel replied. “I must go now. The women’s union has protested to the past use of beer wenches in serving the free beverages, so this year I am operating as a beer basnick.” At their blank faces he added, “The male equivalent of a wench.”

Crowley and Balthazar exchanged a long, silent look after Castiel left. 

“I know you’re currently winning out little race,” Balthazar started delicately.

“But bugger this and let’s go?” Crowley suggested.

“Exactly.”

~*~

The open lawn area was bright with sunlight but not exactly warm, so Balthazar had a grey scarf looped around his neck and a thin navy blazer thrown on over his t-shirt and jeans. Crowley was wearing his usual suit and tie, looking impossibly polished next to his colleague. Usually Castiel fell at the bottom of the style ladder – his attempts at wearing a suit were awkward and rumpled, making him look like a child wearing his father’s clothes for a school play.

“I am amazed that he owns anything other than that ridiculous outfit of his,” Crowley observed when they finally spotted their department pet.

“I’m amazed they got the overcoat off him,” Balthazar replied. Castiel was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt, and a little alpine hat with a feather stuck in the band. He was also wearing another traditional Bavarian item of clothing, and Crowley and Balthazar were passively competing to see who could last the longest without mentioning it. “Maybe he wears that all the time,” Balthazar suggested.

“The coat?”

“No, the... German club uniform. Maybe he wears it to the office and we don’t know because he keeps the coat on.”

Crowley considered this for a moment. “Well, if he did then why wouldn’t he come in with nothing under the coat at all? He spends all day locked in the closet. He could be doing anything in there.”

Balthazar gave Crowley a dark look. “Why would you suggest such a thing? You _know_ I have a graphic thought process.”

Crowley looked over the heads of the students in line around them and smirked. “You’re welcome.”

There was a booth ahead of them, selling plastic cups of beer, and one next to it selling plastic steins that of course were purely ornamental, because putting a litre of beer in one drinking vessel would encourage reckless drinking, which the university did not condone in anyway. There was a long tent across the grass which smelled as if it were selling food that was suspiciously like the regular, awful refectory food but with little cards displaying the German for “hotdogaroni” in front of the sweaty bain-maries.

“How come we didn’t know about this?” Balthazar asked. “Alcohol and giant pretzels. It sounds like something we should have been informed of.”

“Because none of it is free,” Crowley replied flatly. “Also, the memo probably got lost between the ‘international speaker’ drinks and nibbles invite, and the multiple e-mails from Zachariah forbidding us to attend the Singer Research Institute grand opening next week.”

“Right,” Balthazar said, and the social schedule clicked into place in his head. “Are we carpooling to that one?”

“If you want to be the designated driver,” Crowley replied.

“Taxi it is then.”

There was only a small group of students left standing between them and Castiel’s bartending skills, but there was a heated debate going on about the merits of buying more beer than they could carry now versus buying a manageable volume and employing multiple trips. Crowley considered espousing the merits of them getting their grotty student selves out of his way, but he was pretty sure they were engineering students. Annoyed engineering students had an awful way of correlating strongly with Crowley’s beloved car being pulled apart and reassembled inside his office.

Crowley wandered over to the stein stall, and looked dismissively at the wares on display. “We got them cheap from an Oktoberfest that got cancelled interstate,” the student behind the booth told him. “We’re selling them to raise money for our skiing trip next year.”

“And how is that working out for you?” Crowley asked without any real interest.

“We almost have enough for ski rental for two students!” Crowley flicked his eyes up to stare at the perky beast running the stall, and she cringed. “Taking a break from marking?” she asked. “You and Doctor Balthazar are the only lecturers I’ve seen so far.”

“As hard as it is to imagine, we did manage to tear ourselves away from the essays for a moment. I can’t say I recall having done yours yet,” Crowley said, before pausing to muse on the matter. “Do you still need to pass all of your subjects this year to complete your degree?”

“... I think you should have this stein for free,” she said, pushing one into his hands.

“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly-”

“And please take one for Doctor Balthazar, too,” she said, her eyes wide as she shoved another plastic stein at him. “The religious studies department has done _so_ much to help the German club out recently.”

“Well, I mean, if you insist.”

“I do, I really, really do.”

“You’re too kind.”

Crowley sauntered back into place beside Balthazar just as Castiel finished counting out every single quarter the engineering students had managed to scrounge up and waved them on their way. “Those charming lads bought me a drink,” Balthazar said, toasting Crowley with his plastic cup of watery lager.

“Well done,” Crowley replied, and tugged his steins away from Balthazar’s long, demanding fingers. “Intimidate your own students into bribery,” he said testily. But Balthazar managed to coax a stein from his grasp, and both lecturers ignored the way Castiel looked at them with something that may have been amusement on a regular person who showed emotions.

“So,” Balthazar said, turning to Castiel, and failed to get further than that.

“We are raising money for our ski trip,” Castiel said seriously. “Beers are one dollar each.”

“And we only have four hands between us,” Balthazar sighed.

“How much will it cost to get you to put on some pants?” Crowley asked, leaning an elbow on the plywood bar of the booth.

Castiel looked down at himself. “These are traditional lederhosen,” he said, tugging one strap away from his chest. “Formerly, they were worn for hard physical labour because they are a durable garment and easy to clean.”

Balthazar stared at Castiel’s legs, of which there was a great deal on display, unable to tear his eyes away. “You are wearing leather short-shorts,” he said slowly, “out of practicality?”

“Never underestimate the Germans,” Crowley said, grabbing two plastic cups of beer and pouring them into one stein. “They can make anything seem practical from a distance.”

Balthazar ignored him. “And are you a beer wench all day? For the club?”

“Beer basnick,” Castiel corrected, as if it were a serious responsibility. “Until the Bavarian dance-off at two.”

Balthazar glanced down at Castiel’s lean legs once more. “You’re partaking?”

“No, it will be my lunch break.”

“I see,” Balthazar said, still looking at Castiel’s legs. “Well, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you then.”

Crowley eyed off the pair, and quietly drank Balthazar’s free, engineering-student contaminated beer. There was quite a crowed forming behind them, several members of which had clearly already partaken of their first round. There was a raucous round of laughter, and then the general enthusiastic redistribution of bodies that good humour causes, and then someone slammed into Crowley from behind, causing a less than dignified redistribution of beer from the inside Crowley’s mouth to all over the front of Castiel’s entirely traditional leather short-shorts.

(It was, Balthazar assured him later, an incredible thing to witness.)

Castiel looked down at his clothes in dismay, and Crowley turned to shoot a magnificent glare at the moose of a boy who had body slammed him. “I suspect you’ve lost the deposit on that,” Balthazar said sadly.

“I own it,” Castiel replied, wiping his hands off on the bare sections of his thighs. Balthazar managed to choke despite having nothing in his mouth, and needed to clutch the side of the booth for a moment as his understanding of the world realigned itself.

“I’m sorry,” the oversized student said. “Oh, fuck, I am so freaking sorry. Here, let me-” he pushed between Crowley and Balthazar, and pulled the flannel shirt he was wearing over a t-shirt off and used it to help Castiel mop up the spilled and sprayed beer.

“I had hoped to get further into the day before this happened,” Castiel observed in the intense yet emotionally distant way he had.

“I am so, _so_ sorry,” the moose continued.

Balthazar and Crowley met eyes over the man-child between them and, with the kind of non-verbal communication that only exists between kindred spirits, simultaneously reached out to grasp their plastic steins and as many plastic cups of beer as they could manage.

“Best of luck with the trip,” Crowley called over his shoulder as he walked away. Balthazar followed a few moments later, having been distracted by Castiel tilting his head back so that his newfound friend could wipe the moisture away from the base of his throat.

“That whole experience was scarily erotic,” he said as he and Crowley made their way across the lawn. 

“I see you’ve reached a new low. Nice to see you keep challenging those boundaries.”

“He has legs like a sixteen year old. But with slightly more beer on them. And you, _you_ had to go and add the lederhosen-clad victim of ‘surprise lager bukkake’ into the equation!”

“I feel it’s important to be remembered at social events,” Crowley replied evenly.

“I think I need to be somewhere private,” Balthazar continued.

“I’m locking you out of the office,” Crowley shot back.

Balthazar frowned, and then distracted himself with studying his stein. “You know what would go really well in this?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Whatever we have stashed in our desks.”

Crowley gave Balthazar an appraising look. “Alright, you’ve redeemed yourself. Lead on.”

~*~

After demolishing a bottle of Pinot grigio and appreciating a rather cheeky serving of Sangiovese, it was agreed upon that the average bottle of wine just does not stretch far enough when paired with one litre drinking vessels.

“Doesn’t the boss-man have a collection of gift-wines in his inner sanctum?” Balthazar asked, eyeing the locked door to Zachariah’s office.

“Why, I believe he did. Mostly champagne, with a charming mix of international attempts at the style.”

“Well, isn’t that something. You know, champagne isn’t really meant to be stored. As a drink, it is ready to be appreciated from a young age.”

“I had heard just that thing,” Crowley said with a nod. He had his feet propped up on one corner of his desk, marking an essay against his thigh. “Sadly, the last time I broke into his office I noticed a significant decrease in the number of bottles on show.”

“Oh balls,” Balthazar said with a sigh, slumping back into his chair. “Paranoid bugger.”

“Rightfully so,” Crowley said idly. “Given that I was in there to hide the evidence that I’d secreted a healthy selection into more secure holdings.”

Balthazar tilted his head back and barked a laugh as Crowley kicked open the bottom draw of his filing cabinet. “To Oktoberfest,” he said as he uncorked a bottle with a loud pop, “and the wonderful things I have learned.”

At the second bottle, he said: “To Castiel, and the tiniest of shorts that he is wearing.”

On the third bottle, Balthazar had his scarf draped around his upper arms like a particularly plain wrap and swayed a little as he held the bottle high and toasted: “Those magnificent thighs, and the variety of dessert foods I wish to eat off them.”

By the fourth bottle, he was slumped over with his elbows on the desk and his head held up with both hands. “I just want to tie him up, is that so wrong?” he asked around the straw in his mouth. “I just want to put him in satin panties and watch him grind himself against furniture. Is that too much to ask? Does that make me a bad person?”

“Yes,” Crowley replied easily.

Balthazar looked up at him with a scowl. “How would you know?”

“Because that last idea sounds rather fun,” Crowley said as he wrote some scathing comments in red pen. “And I have it on good authority that I am an awful person.”

Balthazar snorted a laugh. After a moment of thought, he followed it up with chuckles, his shoulders shaking and his face going pink with mirth. “Zak-a-lack is going to be so furious when he gets back,” he said.

Crowley frowned, and started on another essay. “Serves him right for going to that conference.”

Balthazar tried to wave a hand dismissively and knocked his mug of pens over. “Oh, you would have hated it.”

“No I wouldn’t.”

“Yes you would. And you would have missed out on this!” Balthazar pushed himself away from his desk, flopping back in his protesting desk chair with his arms flung wide. “Today of all days!”

“What a tragedy that would be,” Crowley said drily.

“Yes! And, without you, I would be out there right now. Drunk on a lawn. Pulling our little PhD candidate onto my lap and shoving my hand right up the leg of his...” Balthazar trailed off as his eyes glazed over. In the time it took him to digest that thought process, Crowley finished marking an essay and dropped his fading pen into the trash can beside his desk.

“Screw him,” Balthazar finally said, “for going to that conference.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Crowley replied. “And on that note, how is your marking going? Because I am completely finished.” Balthazar looked at his pile of essays, unchanged from when he had first abandoned it that morning. He let out a low, defeated whine.

“I will have him,” Balthazar said with great conviction as Crowley stuffed him into his blazer. “I will have him and do wonderfully bendy things to him and it shall be wonderful.”

“Best of luck with that,” Crowley said, giving Balthazar a pat on the shoulder and then grabbing the back of his jacket to keep him from toppling forwards. “I’ll even help you practice your courtship by letting you buy me dinner.”

Balthazar turned to Crowley and gave him a look of skeptical scrutiny. “Wait a moment, why aren’t you half-cut? Toasty? Three sheets to the wind? _Pissed?_ ”

Crowley shrugged on his own jacket and neatly buttoned it up. “Because I wasn’t the fool drinking champagne out of a stein.”

Balthazar considered this logic. “Well played, my friend,” he said at last. “Well played indeed.”


End file.
